CHAPTER XXII

A DISAPPOINTED PROFESSOR

Wild and desolate indeed, was the scene upon which those in the motorship gazed as their craft sank into the valley on the Canadian Border. Located in the midst of a vast mountain range, the great gash in the earth looked as if a giant had, with some titanic shovel, scooped out earth and rocks to make a vast bed for himself. The valley, located well up in the midst of the mountains, extended north and south for many miles. In fact it lay directly across the Border, so that about half of it was in Canada and the other half in the United States.

The boys and their companions had noticed some of the boundary marks just before they began their descent, and they could easily determine their position.

“Think you can make a landing, Jerry?” asked Jim Nestor, as he stood beside the tall lad in the pilot house. “It’s pretty rough down there.”

“Oh, I can land all right,” asserted Jerry. “I can manipulate the _Comet_ to make her go almost anywhere, and we don’t need a very large smooth place to anchor her. But it sure is all mixed up.”

“I should say so!” exclaimed Ned.

“Looks as if some one stood up on the tops of the mountains and threw big rocks down here,” commented Bob, who had come from the kitchen, where supper was in course of preparation.

And indeed Bob’s description was as accurate as any. The floor of the long, but narrow, valley was covered with great rocks and boulders, some of them of vari-colored sandstone, and others of hard, and almost black, granite. Some were of odd shapes, and they differed in size from those almost as large as a house, to mere rocks that a lad could have tossed.

“That happened when the landslide came down,” explained Mr. Brill. “If you’d been here then you would have thought the earth was coming to an end. I never heard such a racket, and the way the rocks and earth tumbled down here was a caution. I just got out in time. If I hadn’t I might be here yet--but not alive.”

From what little view the gold-seekers had of the valley in the gathering darkness it did seem almost impossible of ascent or descent by ordinary means. It was not that the sides were so steep--though they were anything but of gentle slope--but the rugged walls, with here and there sheer precipices, made them out of the question to scale.

“Nothing but a balloon could get down here,” said Mr. Brill. “A balloon or an airship. It was a good thing you thought of these boys, Jim, or we’d never have had a chance for the gold. I don’t believe anyone else could get into this valley; or, if they could, they couldn’t get out again.”

This was not exactly so, as they learned later. For when they had been in the valley some time, and were prepared to leave, they discovered, away up on the Canadian side, a comparatively easy descent. But it was so hidden, and in such an out-of-the-way place that only by the merest accident was it located.

“We can’t do much gold seeking to-night,” said Jerry, as he guided the aircraft to a comparatively level spot where he intended to anchor her. “It’s getting darker every minute, and it doesn’t look very inviting to go traveling around among those rocks, not knowing what moment they may come rolling down on you.”

“That’s right,” agreed the man who had hidden the gold. “We’ll wait until morning. Anyhow, I don’t believe I’d be able to pick out the landmarks by which I’ll have to be guided to the _cache_. I’ll need daylight for that. You see, after I found out that I was being spied upon, I made several bluffs at hiding the gold. That is, I pretended to put it in two or three different places. But it’s all hidden in one spot, and I’ll locate that to-morrow.”

“Then we’ll dig up the gold, and spend a few days hunting before we go back East,” said Ned.

“Maybe it won’t be as easy finding it as you think,” put in Bob.

“Oh, I think I can walk right to it, when we get near enough,” asserted the miner; “but it’s several miles from here--more in the center of the valley.”

“Well, there’s one comfort,” said Jim Nestor. “We won’t be troubled by the Blackfeet to-night.”

“No, but we may be troubled by _cold_ feet!” exclaimed Ned, with a chuckle. “It’s getting chilly. I guess we’ll have to start the furnace to-night, Jerry.”

It was quite cold up among the mountains, even though they were almost at the bottom of a deep valley, and the tall young pilot closed the windows of the airship.

“We can start the electric heaters,” he said, for the _Comet_ was equipped with all the latest improvements in the way of comforts. “Bob, turn ’em on when you go back to finish supper.”

“That’s so! I forgot about that cake!” cried the stout lad, as he made a dash for the galley. “I left it in the oven, and it smells as if it was burning!”

“Cake! He’s the limit!” cried Ned. “He’d make some kind of pastry, or dessert, if he had to use crackers and water, and we were eating our last meal. I never saw such a chap for grub!”

“Let him alone,” suggested Jerry, good-naturedly. “He means all right.”

“That looks like a good place to land,” suggested Jim Nestor, a little later, as the airship approached a spot comparatively free from boulders.

“I’ll try it,” agreed Jerry, and a few minutes afterward the motorship was safely anchored, while night settled down over the mysterious valley.

Bob’s fear for the cake proved unfounded, and the dainty came to the supper table, shortly afterward, in perfect condition. With the airship closed up, and the electric heaters going, the gold-seekers were very comfortable.

They sat about after the meal, talking over what lay before them. It seemed that they were almost at the end of their quest, though they realized that danger and uncertainty might beset them. Professor Snodgrass had about finished making notes of the specimens thus far captured. Placing away his books and boxes, he put on his hat, stretched himself, and started for the door of the cabin.

“Where are you going?” asked Jerry.

“To look for those luminous snakes,” was the answer. “It is good and dark now, and I can see them well. Now that we are in the valley where they exist I must lose no time in securing some specimens.”

“I wish you’d wait until morning,” requested the tall lad. “We don’t know anything of this valley, and, if you go prospecting around it in the dark, something may happen. Besides, there may be wild beasts here.”

“All the better!” exclaimed the professor. “I can get more specimens!”

Jerry was unable to persuade Uriah Snodgrass to stay in, but, as a compromise, the scientist consented to take Harvey Brill and Ned with him, while the others made everything snug for the night.

But Mr. Snodgrass was doomed to disappointment, for though he and the others searched all around, within a radius of half a mile of the aircraft, no luminous snakes were discovered.

“Do you think they can all have vanished?” asked Mr. Snodgrass of the miner.

“Oh, no, for there were lots of them that I saw. But I can’t just say it was here that I noticed them. It may have been farther up or down the valley. Besides, I wasn’t paying much attention to such critters. I wanted to fool the grub-stakers who were on my trail, and hide my gold.”

“Oh, what was gold compared to the luminous snakes?” demanded the scientist. “If I had had your chance I would never have let it slip. Think of being able to present a luminous snake to a museum!”

“I’d rather get my sixty nuggets,” murmured the miner as, with the disappointed professor, he returned to the aircraft.